Service Agreement - Department of Health Tasmania: 2018, Emergency Department - Percentage of all emergency department patients with an ED length of stay less than 4 hours, 2018

Identifying and definitional attributes

Metadata item type:

Indicator

Indicator type:

Indicator

Short name:

Emergency department patients LOS <4 hours (percentage)

METeOR identifier:

698698

Registration status:

Tasmanian Health, Endorsed 28/03/2019

Description:

For all patients presenting to a public hospital emergency department (including publicly funded emergency departments), the percentage of presentations where the time from presentation to physical departure, i.e. the length of the Emergency department stay, is within four hours.

Collection and usage attributes

Calculation includes all presentations with a physical departure date/time in the reporting period, including records where the presentation date/time is prior to the reporting period. Invalid records are excluded from the numerator and denominator. Invalid records are records for which:

Length of stay < 0

Presentation date or time is missing

Physical departure date or time is missing

Calculation includes presentations with any Type of visit to emergency department.

Recording departure time

Emergency department (ED) stay length is the amount of time, measured in minutes, between when a patient presents at an emergency department, and when the patient physically departs the emergency department. It is calculated as per the guidelines included in the NAPEDC NMDS 2016–17:

If the patient is subsequently admitted to this hospital (either short stay unit, hospital-in-the-home or non-emergency department hospital ward), then record the time the patient leaves the emergency department to go to the admitted patient facility.

– Patients admitted to any other ward or bed within the emergency department have not physically departed the emergency department until they leave the emergency department

– If the patient is admitted and subsequently dies before leaving the emergency department, then record the time the body was removed from the emergency department.

If the service episode is completed without the patient being admitted, then record the time the patient's emergency department non-admitted clinical care ended.

If the service episode is completed and the patient is referred to another hospital for admission, then record the time the patient leaves the emergency department.

If the patient did not wait, then record the time the patient leaves the emergency department or was first noticed as having left.

If the patient leaves at their own risk, then record the time the patient leaves the emergency department or was first noticed as having left.

If the patient died in the emergency department, then record the time the body was removed from the emergency department.

If the patient was dead on arrival, then record the time the body was removed from the emergency department. If an emergency department physician certified the death of the patient outside the emergency department, then record the time the patient was certified dead.

Presentation time and date are the time and date of the first recorded contact with an emergency department staff member. The first recorded contact can be the commencement of the clerical registration or triage process, whichever happens first.

Computation:

100 x (Numerator ÷ Denominator)

Numerator:

Number of emergency department presentations where emergency department stay length is less than or equal to four hours.